Background

Every Albanian election since the fall of communism in the early 1990s has been marred by accusations of fraud, but the last parliamentary and mayoral elections left the country in political paralysis.
National elections, held on 28 June 2009, saw Albania's dominant post-communist politician Sali Berisha clinch a second four-year term as prime minister. The opposition Socialists refused to accept the results and accused his government of corruption and vote fraud.
The opposition has boycotted parliament ever since, making it impossible for the country to adopt much-needed reforms on the road to EU accession. Key decisions require a three-fifths majority in parliament to be adopted.
A similar scenario developed place following the 8 May mayoral elections. The opposition candidates claimed that their leader Edi Rama had won the Tirana mayoral contest by 10 votes. But the ruling Democratic party denounced what it claimed was a misplacing of ballot boxes, declaring a victory for their candidate Lulzim Basha by 95 votes, which was confirmed by the court. In return, the opposition accused the government of "stealing votes".
Tensions have been brewing in the impoverished EU hopeful, which has not been immune to violence. Three people were killed during protests in January, which the Prime Minister Sali Berisha himself likened to the 'jasmine revolts' on the other side of the Mediterranean.
Albania has said it would like to achieve EU candidate status by the end of this year.

Ashton and Füle lamented the fallout from the recent mayoral vote in Tirana (see 'Background') and used simple and unusual wording to convey the message that the electoral system in Albania needs "urgent" and "thorough" reform.
"The elections in Tirana were not good as they demonstrated beyond doubt that the electoral framework needs to be reformed," the top EU officials stated.
In their written message, Ashton and Füle call on the Albanian authorities to follow the recommendations of the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's specialised body set up to provide urgent constitutional assistance to Central and Eastern Europe.
"It is time for political forces in Albania to overcome the political stalemate and return to a level of political dialogue that would allow the proper functioning of key democratic institutions, notably the parliament," the two representatives state.
EU officials recently denounced the "lack of political maturity" in Albania, who officially says it would like to achieve EU candidate status by the end of this year.
In an unprecedented gesture, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso cancelled a trip to Albania last May, signalling that patience with the EU hopeful was wearing thin in Brussels circles.
EU insiders had hoped that Croatia's recent successful closure of the accession negotiations would give new momentum to the remaining membership hopefuls in the Western Balkans: Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo. However, with the exception of Serbia, the region's EU hopefuls appear to have provided more disappointment than success recently.
Albania has experienced a difficult transition to democracy partly due to the fact that under communism, the country was a de facto autarchy which had almost no contact with the outside world.

Analysis

OSCE: End of the political stalemateThe Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azhubalis appealed the Albanian government and opposition to start the political dialogue in order to continue with the reforms. (UPDATE) Read More

Albanian policemen in Afghanistan19/07/2011 17:25

Five Albanian Police experts, for the first time in the history of this institution, have received the international training license and will travel to Afghanistan for helping the Afghan homologues.

The Prime Minister greeted the agents by handling the national flag to them, declaring that this mission is very important for Albania as a partner of NATO.

“I express my gratitude and greatest appreciation for your mission, by thanking your families for the solidarity and support that have given in such an important job. I want to guarantee you that the government will make everything possible for the full success of your activity in Kabul”, Berisha declared.

One of the officers declared that they have taken everything in consideration for this mission, and that he feels thrilled to work in a terrain that is much different to Albania.

The five police officers underwent a strict training from US and French police agents.